Category Archives: real life

back to summer camp

Posted on by
4

So, I know that on June 1st I said I would not be returning to my beloved camp this summer, but plans changed.  A few weeks ago, my friend Aaron sent me a text asking if I would be willing to serve as a counselor for Last Chance camp over Labor Day weekend.  Since my heart had felt the absence of time up there, it was pretty easy to twist my arm.  My roommate Desiree and friend Ashley went up too, as well as my brother and a TON of great friends.  It was fun to look around at the other counselors and see so many wonderful camp friends– there is just something special about the people you’ve spent time with under the pines in northern Minnesota.  If you don’t know what I mean by that, I’m sorry for you. 🙂

Anyway, it was a wonderful weekend, even though I forgot all my OCD meds.  Stupid, stupid, stupid!  I took Benadryl at night so that I could sleep without my Risperdal, but in the afternoons (when there were no planned activities), I could feel my spirits sag.  But I survived.  And laughed a LOT, so much that I lost my voice for a day.  Kinda love that.

In other news, I have continued to apply for writing contests and stuff, and I found out that I won a week-long writing retreat in December.  I’ll get to spend a week in this arts retreat house, focusing strictly on my novel, and I can’t wait!

More news: I discovered the band Mew last week.  They are from Denmark.  I like them a lot.  I have been reading a bunch and buying books faster than I can consume them (but what else is new?).

Life feels really good right now.  I feel like God is unleashing blessings on me, and I am praying that I will praise Him regardless of any of it.  My primary goal in life remains to stay connected to my Savior at all costs.  I am so glad that He is a pursuing God.

Okay, off to write some more!  Some book reviews coming up soon!

What about you?  What have you been up to lately??

permission to NOT write

Posted on by
4

Last week I had coffee with Stacey, a fresh college grad and newlywed.  She has a degree in English from my alma mater, and we talked about how she hasn’t had any energy to write lately.  Faced with student loans for an English degree, she feels like she should be writing, but she is just so completely burnt out from her senior project.

I told her the same thing happened to me after college.  I was so exhausted in pretty much every possible way that I didn’t write for three years, I told her.  But I didn’t waste my time either: I read like crazy, tons and tons of great literature, which was essentially like planting seeds into the field of my mind.  I began to harvest years later.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with this.

It is still productive to the writing life to take a break from writing.

Quick clarification: I do believe that– in an appropriate season– it is important to force oneself to write through issues.  This is different than being in a season of rest.  I am in a harvesting season right now, and so I sometimes force myself to write, even when I don’t necessarily feel inspired.

It is the difference between the days of rest/no exertion after an injury and the days of rehab that follow.

I have never regretted my three-year hiatus from writing after college graduation.  It allowed me time to read like a maniac, immerse myself in fantastic literature, build up life experiences, and mature before I later dove into novel writing.

What are your thoughts on this?

slavery and freedom

Posted on by
3

Last Thursday and Friday, I attended the Global Leadership Summit through a satellite site, and it was incredible.  This was my second year attending, and both last year and this year were phenomenal.  Essentially, the Willow Creek Association pulls together a knock-out faculty of world-class leaders to speak; it’s like being smacked upside the head (in incredible ways) each hour.

On Friday, Pranitha Timothy of International Justice Mission spoke about human trafficking and about her work with IJM to rescue many from slavery.  It stirred my blood.  It always does, to hear stories about slavery and freedom.  I want my life to matter, want to do something important for the Kingdom.  I could almost picture myself going into dangerous situations to pull children out of slavery and get them safely back into school.

On Saturday, I met with a college student whom I have known for about a year and a half, a young man who is living in his own personal OCD hell and is ready to break out of it by pursuing cognitive-behavioral therapy.  We sat together, discussing OCD and how hard it was and how no one understands– but also CBT and how it can give him the tools to step from darkness into light.  I told him that in just a short time, he could be free from OCD’s reign, and I realized …

I am an advocate for those in slavery seeking freedom.

I may not be rushing into workhouses to confront slave-owners or holding children in the midst of a chaotic rescue, but I am a CBT advocate, telling obsessive-compulsives over and over and over again that this is the way to freedom.

I still plan to support IJM financially (and you can too at http://www.ijm.org/give), but I realized that my personal rescue missions will look a little different.

guilty pleasures

Posted on by
4

One week ago, I read a book that was not exactly well-written, but I was still pretty fascinated and tore through it (and requested the next two books in the series from the library).  I announced to Facebook that I felt split in two, my reader-self warring with my writer-self.

I generally don’t read poorly-written books.

I know that’s a bold statement, but I figure that I have so many wonderful books on my list to read that I just won’t waste time with a book that doesn’t hold my interest or isn’t written well.

There are a few exceptions.  If I hear from enough people that I have to read a book which I have deemed as sub-par, then I have been known to cave to peer pressure just so that I can come back and tell them that I read it and still didn’t like it (since I am a literature snob.  I know, I know.).  The other exception would be if I have read an incredible book by an author in the past, then I will give the not-as-good book by the same author the benefit of the doubt, reading to the end, hoping for the author to redeem himself.  I feel I owe it to the author since he/she has already graced the literary world at one point.

But then there are these strange guilty pleasure books that I don’t even like to admit I read and enjoyed.  There aren’t a lot.  In fact, I feel like the last time I indulged in such a way was back in high school during the Left Behind series.  But last weekend I read a book about demon-hunting teenagers whose lives are full of killing, blood, and sexual tension.  I guess I will call it a guilty pleasure.

What are yours?

trusting the creative process

Posted on by
14

Trusting the whatta?

The creative process.  I don’t know anyone (except for maybe Addie Zierman) who writes lovely first drafts, and that is just fine.  Freewrite, feedback, re-write, repeat: for me at least, this is the model of the creative process.  And every time I get to the “repeat” part, the draft is better.  If you can boil writing into a formula, that’s what mine looks like.  And then one magical day, the “feedback” part says, “Um, I like it as is,” and you’re done (until some agent tells you otherwise).

It’s bizarre.  Writing– this strange, mystical, spiritual experience– is somehow, for me, whittled into show up and write and then do it again.  After enough times, this clunky, staggering, unrealistic, forced, ridiculous draft turns into a piece of art.  I’m amazed by it.

I have not been writing fiction for long.  Fewer than five years actually.  So I am still in the dating stage with the creative process, still a little unsure that it will really work, uncertain that this formula really does add up.  I’ve spent the last four and half years watching it work (consistently!), and yet I still find myself doubting it.

Then I write another draft, and it is that much better than the last one, and I think in wonder, “It really is working!”

Just like any other relationship, I am learning to trust the creative process.  Show up, put in the effort, don’t get too attached, receive criticism, edit, edit, edit, edit, edit … and it will work.

I am posting this reminder TO MYSELF:

Jackie, KEEP GOING.  Write and keep an open dialogue with those who care about your project.  It will come together.  If it has come this far in 8 months, think of where it will be a year from now!  The creative process WORKS.  It can handle your doubt as long as you keep showing up.

Will you please leave me an encouraging comment?  I could sure use one right now.

writing music

Posted on by
3

For you writers out there, do you listen to music while you write?  What kind?  How loud?  Lyrics or no?  Do you make playlists based on what you’re writing?

My preferences have changed over time, but I find that now I like to write to music with no lyrics, usually background music from movies.  Right now I am loving Harry Gregson-Williams (the early Narnia albums), Carter Burwell (Where the Wild Things Are), Alexandre Desplat (Deathly Hallows and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close), along with other Potter composers like Nicholas Hooper, John Williams, and Patrick Doyle.  So good.  Carter Burwell has a song called “Life Death Birth” (which is from the Breaking Dawn album, don’t judge me) that is just so wonderful to write to.

Sometimes I make playlists to get myself into a particular mood/attitude while I am working a particular scene.  I have a “sadness” playlist, a “you can do it!” playlist, a “falling in love” playlist, and a “confused” playlist.  My friend Caitlin thinks I am silly but endearing. Ha!

Would love to hear how music influences your writing!  Please comment!

when half-gods go

Posted on by
Reply

I remembered this past week a poem that used to matter a lot to me in college, especially for its ending lines.  I discovered it around a time of my life when I was clearing a particular boy out of my romantic life– a boy I was very close to, one I cared about a great deal, who was one of my best friends at the time.  He was marvelous and hilarious and gorgeous, but I knew he wasn’t the right one.  He was what Emerson refers to below as a “half-god.”  I couldn’t settle for a half-god.  Because when half-gods go, the gods arrive.

Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the muse;
Nothing refuse.

‘Tis a brave master,
Let it have scope,
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope;
High and more high,
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But ’tis a god,
Knows its own path,
And the outlets of the sky.
‘Tis not for the mean,
It requireth courage stout,
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending;
Such ’twill reward,
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.

Leave all for love;—
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, for ever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
Vague shadow of surmise,
Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free,
Do not thou detain a hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.

Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Tho’ her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive,
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Still waiting for that Mr. Right!!!!

 

my favorite sports moments ever

Posted on by
Reply

I am not an athlete.  I barely even follow sports.

But when the Olympics roll around, I am suddenly energized and dialed in to whatever different competition is going on.  I may have never heard of the athlete before, but plop them into a gold medal race, and I’m a FAN.  I get very tense while watching.  It’s a little ridiculous.

Here are my two favorite experiences with following sports*, plus a bonus third that I wasn’t yet alive to witness:
*despite whatever ensued in the aftermath

1) The summer of 1998 as Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals chased the home run record.  It seemed like every night I would hear my dad call from the family room, “McGwire went yard!” and the rest of us would come rushing into the room to watch the instant replay of his homer and to marvel as that home run tally increased one by one.  It was the summer before my junior year of high school, and I remember feeling so American.  Shoulda slapped some cherry pie in my hands as I watched that summer, watched and hoped and dreamed of that elusive record, this race drawing back fans after the recent strike.

2) The 2008 Beijing Olympics as Michael Phelps pursued 8 golds in 8 events.  Day after day returning to the Beijing National Aquatics Center to watch whatever magic Phelps would unfold.  I remember the 4×100 relay where Phelps had to rely on Jason Lezak’s anchor leg swim to come from behind to secure that gold.  Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.  I remember the night that Phelps beat Cavic by .01, and I was on my feet and my eyes fooled me.  One-hundredth of one second is a tie to human eyes but means the difference between silver and gold to a computer. This time it was me who would yell to Desiree from the living room, “Phelps is about to race!” and she’d run in to join me, and we’d watch the stars and stripes rise above the others once and then over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

3) The 1973 Belmont Stakes.  My dad would refer to this race as “the greatest moment in sports,” and if you watch the race, it would be hard for you to argue with that assessment.  When I watch the race, my heart just about explodes with pride as Secretariat, the powerful horse with the huge heart, pulverizes his competitors, winning the race by 31 lengths.  “Secretariat is widening now … he is moving like a tremendous machine.”  Toward the end of the race, it appears that there are two races instead of one: Secretariat running his own, and all the rest battling a second so far behind.  The other horses weren’t even in the film shot as Secretariat finished the race.  That is power.  It’s overwhelming to see.

What are your favorite moments in sports?

stunning realization

Posted on by
4

I have recently gone through (and am still enduring) a very humiliating experience.

While praying the other night, I believe the Holy Spirit opened up my eyes to see it in a whole new light:

Wow, Jesus, I just LOVE the way that You handled the Pharisees.  You are so smart and stunning and clever, and You just OWNED them!

It’s interesting to me that those moments– the ones when You seemed most powerful– would not end up being the cornerstone events of history.  Instead it was the CROSS that would– the moment you looked weakest, most defeated, completely ashamed, and beneath the feet of the Pharisees.

HELP ME TO REMEMBER THIS!  These days may end up being the days that define me.  That is startling a little.  God, give me grace, poise, maturity, integrity, favor as I undergo this humiliating experience.  God let me use this time to IDENTIFY with Your Son.

Jesus, my shame is nothing compared to what You went through, and yet You endured it sinlessly.  Give me the strength to do likewise.  Make me humble.  How could I forget that it is You who are the Humble Servant?  This whole experience may serve to make me LIKE YOU.

You understand my feelings even better and more deeply than I do.  Let me be worthy of this humiliation.